Chapter 2 · The Goodbye That Almost Happened

As we wrote in Chapter 1, there was a moment when we thought XXL Lashes was truly over. Not in theory. In reality.

The Shock of the Pandemic

When the pandemic hit, orders fell to zero almost overnight. The bills did not. Warehouses, staff, suppliers, software, advertising. Everything kept running while the world stopped. When life slowly returned, our cash reserves were already gone. We did not have enough to reorder key products. Our bestsellers went out of stock, and with them the steady income they had always brought.

We tried to push through with advertising. Sales rose for a moment, but so did the costs. A twenty-percent increase in revenue came with a twenty- to thirty-percent increase in cost. The return on ad spend turned negative. At the same time, the market shifted in front of our eyes. New competitors flooded in with very low prices. Many products were lower in quality, but in some categories it didn’t matter. Tools, accessories, even lashes.

Professionals reading this will remember the change just as clearly as we do. Many clients stopped going to salons regularly and shifted to DIY. Platforms like Amazon, Shein and Temu grew fast. We even saw familiar names from our loyal customers buying XXL products on Amazon instead of our own store. In one sense it was loyalty. In another, it was a problem: the marketplace fees meant many of those sales barely broke even. If we raised prices, customers left for cheaper alternatives. The same strategy that had once made us strong, being sharper and leaner than our competitors, was now being used against us.

The Day It Looked Like the End

By the end of 2023 and through 2024 we closed in the red for the first time. In the final months of 2024 it felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel. Our founder was reaching a new life stage while also caring for her own mother. For years she had been the engine behind everything you see at XXL Lashes; the logo, the packaging, the sourcing, the texts, the trainings, the countless details. Her dedication was total. Anyone who has built a business knows this state of mind: you don’t relax when you work, you only feel stress when you stop, because you know what still waits for you on the screen. Without that constant push, the competition caught up and ran ahead.

The day we decided to liquidate stock was the day it really looked like the end. Prices dropped below what we had paid. Money that once built our inventory now seemed thrown away. Although better thrown away like this than wasted in silence, it was still painful.

Customers asked questions. Rumours spread in the community. Competitors bought unbranded stock. Offers came to buy our brand name, even our glue formulations, but not the company or the people behind it. That cut deep.

“It felt like a betrayal not only to us as a team, but to every stylist who had trusted XXL Lashes for years.”

The Team That Stayed

Inside the company it was heavy. There were real tears. Loyal people, our family in the truest sense, even if not by blood, faced uncertainty about how to support their families. And still, they stayed. During the liquidation period, orders doubled. The team answered twice as many messages, packed twice as many boxes, carried the warehouse through the storm. They worked late, came early, skipped bonuses. They carried XXL Lashes when it was hardest to carry.

There was another truth we had to face. Over time, a very focused niche had grown into a huge catalogue. It made us proud, positioned us as a leading supplier, but it also tied up all our cash. Too many SKUs, too many variants, too many warehouses with fixed costs. The company did not fail because the products were not loved. It struggled because the structure no longer fit the reality of the market.

It was the moment we thought the story was over. The goodbye felt final.

What we didn’t know yet was that this near end would also plant the seed of something new.

But that is for the next chapter.